New degree to help small and medium business
Ha Noi, Jan. 29 (VNA) -- The Planning and Investment Ministry is drafting a decree intended to give small-to-medium business development new momentum.
The enterprises - 90 percent of them State-owned - make up 26 percent of Viet Nam's gross domestic product, GDP, and last year provided stable employment for more than eight million people.
In so doing, they played an important role in Viet Nam's socio-economic development.
In addition, non-State small-to-medium businesses account for 78 percent of the retail turnover and carry 64 percent all goods transported.
However, most lack high-tech equipment, investment capital, market information and managerial expertise making it difficult for them to compete in both the international and domestic markets.
Further, many of their employees, especially those working at small enterprises, are unskilled, poorly educated and lack proper training. Or as a Planning and Investment Ministry official explains only 5.1 percent of the employees are university or college-degree holders and these are working at joint-stock and limited-liability companies.
The Government has published criteria defining small-to-medium size enterprises and is now devising policies to help them match their potential, the official adds.
The Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development of Viet Nam has joined the Viet Nam Co-operative Union in providing soft loans to small-to-medium enterprises, while commercial banks are simplifying lending procedures to help them.
The ministry official says a website has been launched to serve small-to-medium enterprises within the framework of a programme to help the non-State corporate sector.
The programme was sponsored by the German Organisation for Technical Cooperation, GTZ, and the Viet Nam Council of Co-operative Union in a bid to help small-to-medium enterprises increase competitiveness by providing them with information about import-exports, personnel training, consultancy, marketing and other services.
The official says 18 technical support and three financial assistance programmes are being implemented by foreign organisations and agencies to help develop Viet Nam's small-to-medium businesses.
The programmes focus on research, training and consultancy in an effort to raise the managerial capacity of enterprises.--VNA
